Join us for a visit with some of our favorite authors whose books we love to read and share with everyone. You'll get to hear from authors who've become friends over the years, authors we're just discovering, and lots of prizes and books to win!

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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Are you
addicted to home improvement projects? I am. My kids claim there isn’t a room
in our house that hasn’t been changed since they were little. Until this year
they were wrong—my office was the one room in our house that hadn’t been
touched (other than with paint.)

When we
moved into our house about eighteen years ago I considered myself lucky that I
had an office—my own separate room with a door and a window—where I could
write. I didn’t have to write on the kitchen table or lock myself in the
bathroom to get a little privacy. No, I was fortunate enough to have my own
space and so I didn’t fuss too much about the sticky drawers, the poor
lighting, the lack of storage. Over the years I added more and more stuff into
my space, all the time dreaming of one day designing my perfect office.

Year after
year I sat in this place and wrote books. In fact, about 32 of them. During
this time we renovated almost every other room in our house. We redid the
kitchen and bathrooms. Updated the basement. Replaced carpet with hardwood.

Finally this
year I decided it was time to tackle the office. I made a list of what I
wanted: more storage, better lighting, a huge bulletin board so I could map out
my stories and put up inspirational pictures. I wanted a pretty, feminine
space. A comfy chair and footstool for reading and editing.

I enlisted
some help. Rose-ann from Normandeau Interiorsconsulted on the design and the
cabinetry was designed and constructed by Sean at Athena Industries in Calgary.

The end
result was this: Fabulous new desk, bookshelves, and file storeage—and check
out the glitzy new light fixture:

My new story
board takes up one entire wall and gives me lots of space for planning my
stories and putting up inspirational photos.

And my
pretty new chair is a great, comfy spot for reading, relaxing and enjoying my
lovely new office!

Thanks to
Rose-Ann and Sean for helping me achieve the office of my dream!

And thanks
to my guy Mike for putting up with all the chaos we went through to get here.
;)

Which room
in your house would you most like to renovate? Tell me about your renovation
dreams and I’ll select one random winner to receive a copy of Cathy McDavid’s
Harlequin American: Aidan: Rodeo Cowboy.

The year I
worked with Cathy and 4 other super talented authors to create the 6 book Harts
of the Rodeo series. You can see an amazing book trailer introducing the series
here: http://bit.ly/NwmmRx

Saturday, July 28, 2012

So did you watch the opening of the Olympic Games?!?! I did and I loved it. Here in New Zealand we could watch the live coverage from the very reasonable time of 8.a.m. Saturday morning. I loved the bit about the reference to the UK childrens' literary tradition and the hospital service--that giant Voldemort and the million Mary Poppinses! Was awesome. And of course Mr Bean was brilliant. So was Bond with the Queen - how cool she was cool enough to get on board with that!

Most of the sporting events over the next two weeks will be on the middle of the night but happily, there'll be a million replays. And of course there's always caffeine.

I love the Olympics - there's the aspiration, inspiration, an abundant display of the joy of youth, the incredible ability and grace of the human race. And the sheer energy that seems to ripple around the world even when you're just watching it 'on the box'. There's also heartbreak and so many 'if onlys'. But it is wonderful. That said, I'm glad they're only every four years - it makes it super-special, don't you think?

So it's just a short post from me today, because I have much men's diving, rowing and swimming to watch. Not to mention that modern pentathlon--what an amazing array of skills you need to compete in that!!!

Are you watching the Olympics over the next couple of weeks? What's your favourite event???

USA TODAY bestseller
Natalie Anderson writes fun, frisky, feels-good contemporary romance. With over twenty books published,
she’s also been a Romantic Times
Award nominee & a finalist for the R*BY (Romantic Book of the Year). She
lives in Christchurch, New Zealand with her husband, four children and what
feels like a million ducks. Her next release, WAKING UP IN THE WRONG BED is on the shelves in North America in August and you can grab a copy from Amazon or B&N.

As cheesy and ridiculous as most media involving vampires can be,
I love them dearly.Movies, TV shows,
games, books—even music videos—there’s a little something for everyone.

One of the first books I read about vampires was by R.L. Stine (I
believe it was GOODNIGHT KISS). When I was younger, I loved reading his Fear
Street novels, and devoured as many of them as I could get my hands on.After reading this one, he sparked my
interest in reading more about vampires.Soon, I was reading Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, and watching movies like Interview With the Vampire and Fright Night.

What was it about them that made them so fascinating?As much as I’ve always loved fantastical
things, vampires drew my interest like nothing else. Was it their power? Their
charm?A fascination with the dead?Maybe all of those things and none of them.
There’s something compelling about a creature that has no life force of its
own, and must subsist on the blood and flesh of others in order to
survive.We see animals and insects like
this in nature, such as ticks, bats, leeches, and lampreys. There is even a
type of bird that lives on the Galapagos Islands called a “vampire finch” that
supplements its diet of insects with the blood of bigger seabirds.

It’s also been said that the penetration of the vampire’s fangs is
supposed to have some bearing on oral fascination. And why not? There is
something to be said for the variations of aggression that can be alluded to when
referring to the mouth, lips, teeth, tongue, and biting; whether to fight or in
sexual play, it’s not hard to see how reading or watching movies about that
might remind some primitive part of us about the darker side of nature.The psychological implications are many and
varied, but they are what you make of them.

Depending on the lore the book, movie, etc, used for their
vampires, they can be smart, sexy, rich, suave, lonely, selfish, sensual, frightening,
dangerous, beastly—or some combination thereof.They might present a false front, an image of being cool, collected, and
enticing their victims with promises of pleasure or power.Others hid in shadows and pounced when their
prey least suspected, too weak or monstrous or ugly to do otherwise.Either way, they have always drawn my
interest and left me wanting more.

What do you think?Who are
some of your favorite vampires in movies, books, and video games? If you’re a
fan, what draws you to them?

Thursday, July 26, 2012

There’s something about seeing your favorite band play live:
the noise, the atmosphere, the performance. I’m one of those people who likes
to be up the front standing and dancing. I find it very odd to sit at a concert
as I always want to get up and move. Being at a concert is very different to
watching a video clip—even if that is a recording of them playing. The show is
more personal and there’s a kind of magic and atmosphere that can’t be
recreated by TV.

I wanted to capture some that thrill of seeing your favorite
band play live when I wrote the ‘Sex with Strings’ series—and take it one step
further. What would it be like to be in a relationship with a man whose first
love was music and performing? I added some leather and fangs and Lucinda’s Lover was born. Vampire rock
stars, what could be hotter?

What if they weren’t your usual rock band but they played
grungy electric strings? (The ‘what if’ game can be so much fun). Once I had
that the rest fell easily into place.

In the ‘Sex with Strings’ series I’ve taken the band from
inception (Kissing Phoenix) to break up (Enchanting Absinthe), there’s been
concerts, backstage hook ups, fights, broken hearts, three in a bed, and one
Vampire with a love of body piercing. Along the way the guys, Phoenix,
Thanatos, Sirius and Absinthe have found love, sometimes where they least
expected it.

This series was my way of exploring my love of music, rock
stars and Vampires :) I’d love to know which rock stars you had pinned to your
wall as a teen. For me it was Iva Davies from Icehouse—which probably means
nothing if you’re not an Aussie—and Bon Jovi.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably got a stack of
paperbacks by your bedside and an electronic device full of ebooks, all of
which you can’t wait to read.

And probably more than 90 percent are part of a series.

I love reading and writing series. There’s a sense of
excitement in returning to the world of a great series. You can’t wait to see
what’s new in this world you’ve grown to love and can’t wait to spend some time
with favorite characters again.

Right now on my Nook, I’m reading Chasing Magic by Stacia
Kane. This is part of the Downside Ghosts series and I’m totally hooked on this
urban fantasy series. Kane’s mix of gritty supernatural plots and deeply flawed
characters you either love or hate is a heady combination. Trust me, you will
fall in love with Terrible, sideburns and all. And even when you want to smack
Chess occasionally, you’ll still root for her to survive.

What I really love about this series, though, is that the
characters continue to change and grow. The world continues to move forward and
change and evolve.

Waiting patiently for me to finish Kane’s book is Shayla
Black’s Embrace Me At Dawn, part of the Doomsday Brotherhood series. These
books are straight-up paranormal romance but Black keeps all her characters as
an integral part of the plot.

Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld is another great
series if you’re looking for super sexy stories with hot men and even hotter
romance. And of course, there’s always JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood, if
you’re into huge, hulking, hunky vampires, which, of course, I am.

Which brings me to my newest release. Goddess in the Middle
is the third book in the Forgotten Goddesses series. It’s a male/female/male
erotic paranormal romance with two hot werewolf males, one sweet, sexy goddess
of health and visits with characters from the previous two books in the series,
What A Goddess Wants and How To Worship A Goddess, as well as characters from
previous series, as well.

Sal the salbinelli makes an appearance, as does Cat and
Nortia and Tessa and Lucy and Kyle and… well, you get the point.

As a writer I love creating a world that I get to play in
for more than a few hundred pages. And I love being able to catch up with my
favorite characters again.

So what are you reading this summer?

Wanna read Goddess In The Middle? Leave me a comment about a
series you love and I’ll be back in a week to pick a winner for a book.

Monday, July 23, 2012

As I write this,
news is coming in about someone shooting up a movie theater in Colorado, a
writer friend is ill, and some horrible website is putting up personal
information of book reviewers online and compromising their safety. There is
some really ugly stuff going on in the real world ... and I am sitting here
writing romance novels.

By definition, romances end happily,
either "ever after" or "for now." I once had someone say to
me: "But that's not what life is like!"

EXACTLY.

I can't wallow in all the awful things
that get thrown into the atmosphere every day. I know how depressed it will
make me. I read romances to give myself an out, a place to escape the evil. I
write romances to hopefully bring those moments to someone else.

I'm not kidding myself. After a romance
novel ends, I'm sure the happy couple will go on to fight about bills and deal
with screaming babies and face evenings of less-than-satisfactory sex, but for
now, I can read about passion fulfilled and hurdles overcome. I know that the
good guys will win between the covers (and under them, hehe), when just outside
my window that's not always the case.

Still, I do read books without happy
endings. I can say I found them "incredible" or "profound"
or "gut-wrenching." It is hard, however, to call them
"wonderful," and I likely won't talk about them with a smile on my
face. I might recommend them, but with caveats. Often, after finishing one, I'm
left feeling uneasy or hollow. I have a need to fill myself with
positivity.

I whole-heartedly believe in karma.
Putting good into the universe will create more good, whether it's from
stories, or outward goodwill or just benevolent thoughts.

That moment I wrap up a novel, and the
action and characters and plot all come together, is a joyous occasion. Even if
some things in the characters' world have changed, and not necessarily for the
better, I know that they've persevered and survived, and they will be rewarded
justly. I can only pray that the real world might one day be the same.

What about you? Why do you read romance?
Do you find that books can change your mood or mindset?

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Hi, everyone! It’s a
hot summer here in Ontario, Canada.
Hotter than usual. I’m not
complaining, though. Since we have such
long, cold winters in Ottawa, I’m happy to enjoy the heat as long as
possible! I’ve been in the pool almost
every day since early June and that’s not true every year.

It’s a great time to stretch out in the sun and enjoy a hot
summer read. And by hot I mean
steamy!

Well, one of the hottest reads around right now is the Fifty
Shades of Grey trilogy. They’re still
flying off the bookstore shelves!
Whether you loved the books or hated them, you have to admit that the
trilogy is quite a phenomenon.

Publishers are scrambling to catch the attention of that new
set of readers. It makes sense. The trilogy has captured the interest of a
huge new potential audience and those readers are looking for something similar
to read. Publishers are trying to make
it easier for them to find books along the same line. For instance, St. Martin’s Press, has set up
a webpage to show off their contenders.
They call it Fifty Shades Hotter.

This bid for attention is causing a new trend in book
covers. Grey covers are popping up
everywhere.

The books are monochrome with the focus on an object, and
often the title offers a subtle splash of colour, like on BEAUTIFUL DISASTER by
Jamie McGuire. On the cover of the first
book of Sylvia Day’s new series, Crossfire, the yellow of the title is carried
over to the cufflinks, too. I love this
cover!

Publishers are even repackaging some of their older books
with snazzy grey covers. For instance,
my book BLUSH
has a great new cover and will be popping up in bookstores soon. Also, Lora Leigh’s WILD CARD.

My next two releases will also have grey covers. A different cover was originally designed
for Illicit (February 2013) and has been on Amazon and Barnes and Noble for
months now. The new cover isn’t public
yet, but should be soon.

I like the simplicity and elegance of these covers and think
it makes it easier for readers to identify some really hot (or should I say
sizzling) reads.

What do you think of this trend?

Thanks for reading,

Opal

One lucky person who comments will win a free print copy of
Opal’s book BLUSH. (The new version of
BLUSH won’t be available until mid-August, so the prize will be mailed then.)

***Opal's winner is Lagl23!! Congratulations! Please email totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your full name and mailing info!!***

So for my
second novel, Guarding
Jess, writing about a woman who not only knew her blues from her purples,
but who could also advise others on what to wear, was a real stretch for me
(cue my close friends and family rolling on the floor, laughing). I was
initially drawn to writing about a character who was an etiquette and image
consultant through a really bad customer service experience with a really rude
employee at a phone company, and I discovered that talking, behaving and
communicating successfully went hand in glove with personal presentation.

I learned
of my…quirk…the hard way. I wore an outfit to work that didn’t co-ordinate.
At all. A kind friend took me aside one day to ask me why I’d worn a purple
blouse with a certain skirt. That was my first clue that something was wrong. (What
do you mean it’s not blue? I won’t even mention the shoes.) I’ve had
many similar situations occur since then – so many, in fact, that I generally
have to ask others ‘does this go together?’ before leaving the house.

I
discovered a whole new world of beauty and creativity when I researched this
story – clothing styles, shoes, handbags – I discovered a hidden desire for Olga Berg handbags and Christian
Louboutin shoes, and I’m not sure how to recover from this affliction.

My heroine,
Jessica Pennington, does not have this problem. In fact, she’s the opposite.
She knows the right thing to say at the right moment, manages to look fabulous
with a minimum of effort, and sees fashion shopping is a necessity, not a
punishment. Yes, I know, this is the kind of woman you’d love to hate (hence
her stalker), but despite appearances, she isn’t perfect. This imperfect Miss
Prissy was the ideal mate for my hero, Noah Samuels – a no-nonsense,
tell-it-like-it-is kinda a guy – who doesn’t see the point in saying stuff just
for the sake of polite conversation.

Oh, and he
totally rocked, in and out of his clothes. Let’s just say that he convinces
Miss Prissy to try a little naughty on for size, and leave at that.

Sigh.

I loved
writing about these two – one who knew exactly what to do and when, and one who
said and did what he wanted, and damn the consequences.

Anyway,
getting back to totally rocking an outfit (not) tell me, what fashion
trend would you like to see resurrected? Fluoro socks? Shoulder pads a Boeing
747 could land on? Safari suits?

Leave a
comment and Lee will select a winner for a copy of my second romantic suspense
novel, Guarding
Jess!

Feel free
to drop by my website, www.shannoncurtis.com,
for more information on the McCormack Security Agency series!

Friday, July 20, 2012

For years I would lament to my friends, family, agent,
anyone who would listen to me about how annoyed I was with the vampire trend;
like the subject matter of these novels, they simply would NOT die. Made me
crazy that fabulous novels were being passed on by publishing houses while
mountains of tripe were being published under the guise of a
"literary" craze. Sure there were good vampire novels out there, but
really? I'd bet the vast majority of them were mediocre drivel.

So I was meeting with my agent at a conference,
bemoaning the finicky state of publishing, and jokingly mentioned an idea I had
for a vampire novel, one I'd never write, because it was a ludicrous idea, so I
figured it would be the thing publishing houses would go for
(as opposed to the books I wanted to pitch but weren't the ones pub houses were
looking for).

"So you have this woman who is turned into a vampire by
her cheating husband, who was turned into a vampire by someone he'd slept
with," I say with a laugh. "She then spends the rest of eternity
trying to exact revenge on him for his betrayal. And it'll be a funny
book."

I expected her to pat me on the knee and tell me to
get back to writing a good book. But instead she said she liked the idea and
thought it might have legs.

A week or so later, she tells me she had lunch with an
editor who loved it and wanted to see pages. Pages of a book. One I hadn't
planned on and wasn't planning on writing. So I got to work cranking out this
non-novel of mine; I hunkered down and wrote and wrote and wrote. Got about 80
pages into it and slapped together a synopsis and sent it off to my agent,
assuming that would be the last I'd heard of it.

Turns out the editor loved the partial I'd sent on,
and she was taking it to ed board. Well, if you've been around the publishing
business long enough you learn about ed board. It's the gathering of insiders
in a publishing house who either green light or kill your dream. Long gone are
the days in which ed boards embraced risky books, or different books or
anything but for what seems like something penned by the reality TV celebrity
du jour, who doesn't actually write the thing anyhow but goes on a huge
national tour earning gobs of cash while flacking their lousy book that no one
with a modicum of self respect ought to even purchase, let
alone read. Okay, off my soap box.

Anyhow, after the economy tanked and the publishing industry
lost its last ounce of true soul, it became damn near impossible to find
consensus on a whole lot of books, particularly in women's fiction, which at
the time was a hard sell on a good day anyhow. So when my book went to ed board
with an editor who loved it and really pushed for it, I still figured it had a
minimal chance of getting the thumbs up. And sure enough, apparently the editor
in chief or the publisher or someone all-powerful in this ed board determined
that humor in these kinds of books either works or it doesn't work and they
weren't going to chance it. Thus driving a stake in the heart of my vampire-novel-that-wouldn't-be.

My agent shopped it around a little bit more, found another
editor who apparently really liked it but then she quit the business a week
later. By then the genre had finally, finally died. Just in
time for me to try to break into it. (This tends to happen with me--give me a
genre and I'll kill it in a day flat; certainly worked well with chick lit).

Since then, my novel has been collecting dust in the far
corners of my computer. I've entertained the idea of finishing it and
publishing it myself, but really have just been too busy with other things to
get around to it. So I figured I'd throw this up as my trunk novel and get your
read on what you think of it. Should I keep this vampire hermetically sealed
with garlic cloves and silver stakes in my laptop dead file that should be
re-named "The Graveyard"? Or should I resurrect this monster and give
it a new life on your e-reader of choice? You decide...

It all started innocently enough. Well, as innocently as
these things can start, anyhow. And perhaps I wasn't entirely guiltless, if
only because I succumbed to that most human of conditions: lust.

Although it wasn't the lust that killed my marriage. That
came later. The demise of our union came courtesy of my execrable, lamentable
and most deplorable husband, who decided to spring upon me an unexpected
midlife crisis, in which he was overtaken by the entirely selfish urge to sow
some wild oats. Or barley. Or grass seed, for all I know. For that matter I
didn't know much of anything. All I did know was that that fucker dumped me.
High and dry. While I was doing a load of his whites.

"I'm not feeling fulfilled," he'd said to me that
day as I sorted the more stained clothes from the hamper into a separate pile.

"Fulfilled?" I asked, not even looking up as I
un-mated yet another pair of his soggy gym socks (why he re-rolled dirty socks
was always a mystery to me). I thought he was talking about a dearth of
intellectual stimulation in his life. "Take a class or something."

Jude toed the ground in front of him with his black-soled
sensible accountant shoes, scuffing the freshly-polished hardwoods of my
sparkling laundry room. I've always felt that a laundry room is a reflection of
the rest of one's life and my laundry room floor was clean enough to lick. Not
that my life was particularly lickable, but you know what I mean.

I leaned over with a spray bottle of Murphy's Oil Soap,
always at the ready, and pumped two squirts at the offending marks, wiping them
clean with a pair of his BVDs that were awaiting a bleaching.

"Are those my Calvin Kleins?" he asked, grabbing
them from me, glaring at the brownish Murphy splotch right on the butt of the
things. I suppose if that didn't come out in the wash it could cause some
embarrassment. But then again who would see them but me, anyhow?

"No worries. They're going in the wash for a good soak,
so I thought I'd just save myself having to clean a dirty rag."

I suppose it should have been a red flag that the underwear
in question was of the designer variety, and that he even knew that they were.
Until a few months ago I could buy Jude's tightie whities in bulk at Costco and
he'd have only praised me for my thrift. But at age forty-five, his seeking out
designer drawers should have been the first of my indicators that our
relationship had gone awry.

"Look, Marina, I don’t appreciate you using my Calvin
Kleins as a dishrag."

"In case you hadn't noticed, there are no dishes here.
Besides, I didn't use your underwear for anything more than wiping up your
scuff." I pointed to the ground for emphasis.

Jude put his hands in his pockets and looked toward the
doorway, sighing, his shoulders actually slumping as if I'd tossed a hefty sack
of potatoes over each one.

"I need some space. Some time away. I'm not
happy."

I stopped in mid-sort and stared at him, trying to peer into
what I then realized was quite a blank face, one masked with apathy.

"Just because I used your tight whites to wipe up some
dirt off the floor?"

"They're not tight whites. They're boxer-briefs."

Oh, my god. Boxer briefs. Twenty years of marriage,
dissolved over a semantic disagreement about a pair of undies. I began to wring
my hands, stammering to find the right words to come out. But what could I say?
One minute I was just attending to my household obligations and the next I was
being kicked to the curb.

"Look," he said, his usually pleasant face
contorted in such a way that he appeared as if he was torn between trying to
apologize for being a dick and thrilled that he'd finally come out and said
it — his inner demons plying his visage like a glob of silly putty.
"I'm sorry. I tried to fight it. Really I did. I just need to work some
things out."

"Things? What sort of things?" I sobbed, spritzing
some Windex on the surface of the washing machine to clean up the liquid Tide
that had dribbled there. "Or is it some woman named 'Thing'?"

He shook his head back and forth. "No, there is
no thing. Well, there are things. But no Thing.
Does that make sense?"

"Of course it makes no sense. You're not
making sense."

Jude buried his face in his hands. "It's bigger than
me. You simply have to believe me when I say this. It's out of my hands."

With that, he turned and walked away, striding through the
kitchen and out the garage door as if he was late for a doctor's appointment,
with only these parting words, "I'll make sure you're taken care of, you
know. I don't want you to think I'm a complete asshole."

As if.

#

But it goes without saying that when you've been
married for two decades and you have gratuitous sex on a somewhat regular basis
for half your life and then wham!, you aren't having any at all,
well you might just overlook your better judgment when that green-eyed horntoad
comes hop-hop-hopping along. I hadn't gotten laid in several months; a girl can
only take but so much deprivation.

So how was I to know it was going to be a huge mistake? And
not just shit, I wish I'd bought those fabulous shoes on sale at
Nordstrom's last week huge, but oh crap, it's the end of the
world as I know it huge. As far as mistakes go, this was of the A-bomb
variety.

Jude had come by to drop off a support check. It was the
least he could do after everything. Bad enough he abandoned me and our lives,
but to do so and leave me with no cash to pay the bills and the mortgage, well
that would be entirely unseemly and Jude was nothing if not seemly when it came
to finances. What more could you expect from a CPA?

I’d already poured myself a second glass of wine (having
tossed one down my gullet in anticipation of his arrival) so I didn't exactly
notice Jude's peculiarly cold stare and peaked countenance at first, the whites
of his azure eyes a stippled with red. I thought maybe he was just tired, and I
was plenty satisfied to see that his footloose lifestyle might not be agreeing
with him so much. Hey, I know at this point in life carousing all night is not
as easy as it once was.

I invited him to have a seat and I took my place to his
right, expecting him to initiate conversation. I straightened a stack of
magazines in front of me on the coffee table, then fanned them out, finally
settling on a neat stack while awaiting a word from his pursed lips.

"What's the matter — cat got your
tongue?" I finally asked him after a few long minutes of awkward silence.
I know it seems weird that I'd even let the man into my house, all things
considered, but I am a firm believer in trying to remain on speaking terms with
one's ex. Of course I never knew I'd have to practice what I preached in that
regard, but now that I must is no time to drop one's standards.

I grabbed another Waterford goblet (the pattern we'd
registered for together at Bloomingdales all those many years ago) from the
china closet to pour Jude a glass. I couldn't have the man leaving me money
without being somewhat polite toward him.

"Wine?" I asked.

His eyes lit up a little bit. "What do you have?"

"Red okay?"

He loosened his necktie, looking ravenous, as if he hadn't
had anything to eat or drink in days and my offering was going to solve that
problem pronto.

"I've been dying for something
red," he said.

Of course I didn't even think twice about it. Sometimes I
could kill for something red myself. We talked for a little bit about this and
thats, nothing important. I asked if he was doing his laundry fine and he said
he'd found a woman in his apartment building who had offered to do it for him.
Figures. Wonder if she's staining his Calvin Kleins.

"What's she getting in return?" I asked as I
squinted a bit, afraid I could guess at the answer. He merely raised his
eyebrows, but I swear I saw a passing glimpse of pain alight on his face. But
just as quickly it dissipated, and he leaned back against the sofa, stretching
his arms across while crossing one leg over the other.

"You look good, Marina," he said, nodding up and
down at me. I guess he liked my new red highlights.

I half-laughed a sort of sad, hollow laugh.

"No, seriously. Good enough to eat." He reached
across and tucked a finger beneath the strap of my pink camisole Hello
Kitty! pajama top. I guess I had been looking a little better lately;
a marital break-up has a way of helping a girl slim down in no time.

"But not good enough to see you through your crisis
of self I suppose," I said looking down at the ground. I couldn’t
help but remain conflicted about the man. Part of me hated him down to his DNA
and wanted to reach into his throat and extract his internal organs and splay
them in front of his face, just to exact a bit of revenge. But the other part
of me couldn't get over what we'd once had. Up until a month ago I had loved
this man and no other. I'd trusted him.

"I told you, Marina, I'm just trying to get my head on
straight," he said, running the fingers of his free hand through his wavy,
black hair as if whatever was on his mind was paining him. Yet he continued to
twirl the strap of my top.

We sipped some wine and talked about Bittsy, our black cat,
a bit. So far Jude hadn’t made a play for custody of Bittsy, which was good.
Because I'd no sooner give her up than I'd die for the man.

Jude wiped his lips after finishing off his glass of wine. I
took a final sip of mine and a trickle of wine missed my mouth, trailing down
my chin to my neck. Just as I was about to dab it away, Jude, always the
chivalrous man, came to the rescue.

"Here, let me," he said, and I fully expected him
to blot the drip with his thumb. Instead he leaned forward and dragged his
tongue from the base of my neck to just beneath my chin, then licked his lips
for emphasis. It sent chills up my spine. Unfortunately not bad chills, either.

There was something eerily sensual about Jude that night.
Like how a male stripper can be both a turn on and a turn off at the same time.
Fact is, I'd never done it with someone as seductive (or forbidden) as a male
stripper before, and for some reason the notion of illicit sex (or at that
point, any sex) sounded so appealing.

"What was that for?" I panted out the question as
if I'd just sprinted the hundred-yard dash.

"You know you can be terribly irresistible,
Marina."

Jude licked his lips again in an almost wolfish manner. Now,
throughout the course of our marriage, the sex was fine, but it was never
downright erotic. There was never once a moment when I felt the kind of thrill
you might get, say, if you rob a bank. Not that that would thrill me, mind you.
Yet here was my ex-husband, the ink barely dry on the divorce decree, heating
up my libido with the mere trace of his tongue across lips?

I was trying to figure out what to say next when Jude took
matters into his own hands. He grabbed the bottle of Merlot from the coffee
table, and poured a splash down the center of my neck, into my cleavage. A
small part of me was mentally shrieking "Why! I never!" — what
with the guaranteed wine stain on my pajama top (and don't even remind me of
the one on my dupioni silk divan). But an ever bigger part of me was in
hubba-hubba mode, because I hadn’t ever driven a man to do
something like that.

Before I knew what was happening Jude was atop me, licking
me like a starving schnauzer that's been given a bone coated in peanut butter.
His hands were under my top before I could even protest (and at that point how
could I?) and before I could do much more but surrender both of us were clawing
at each other, hurling clothes as far away as the kitchen. I should've demanded
a condom —what if he'd been sleeping with the laundry lady?— but foolishly
discounted it (we'd given up worrying about pregnancy years ago, to my dismay).

"Marina, you make me do strange things," Jude said
as he entered me with far more force than I ever recall, yet far more passion
as well, grabbing, groping, pulling, and nipping as he was.

"If this is what you call strange then I'm all for
making it more familiar," I said as I searched for his mouth, which seemed
to be in a frenzy trying to stake his claim all over my body.

"Oh, my God," Jude groaned with one final thrust
as his hungry mouth came down along the column of my neck.

"Oh, sweet Jesus," I screamed as I felt as if a
staple gun had just punctured my throat. "What the fuck are you
doing?"

For a moment all I could hear was panting, his and mine
intermingled, but mine more with fear, his more with what seemed to be
repletion. As Jude finally released his grip on my neck, I reached to feel what
the branding iron pain was from, and my fingers came away smeared with blood.

I pushed Jude off of me and sat up, naked,
trembling. "What the hell is wrong with you? You hurt me!"

"Oh, shit." He wiped away a trickle of
blood from his lips then rolled off of me and groaned, first quietly, but then
louder and louder until he was screaming. "Oh God! How could I have done
that?"

"Done what?" He was really scaring me. First with
that bite that came out of nowhere and then this, as if he'd unleashed the
Hounds of Hell on me and now regretted it.

I looked closely at his face and saw that his pallor seemed
to have perked up. He almost glowed with good health.

"Have you done something that will get you into
trouble?" I ask, rubbing my neck, which hurt like a sonofabitch.

Jude stood up and began to pace, muttering inaudibles over
and over again, dragging his fingers through his hair as if raking up a
leaf-strewn yard.

"Marina, you'd better sit down."

Considering I already was sitting down — stark
naked, I might add — that was hardly sage advice. I had this feeling
come over me, a really bad feeling. Like when my mother broke the news to me
that my father was dying of cancer. Somehow I must have sensed that whatever
Jude was about to say was going to throw my world into upheaval.

Jude was pacing like a convict awaiting the executioner, and
deliberately not making eye contact with me. Naked pacing ought to be
considered an obvious sign of trouble ahead.

"Now what I'm about to say you're not going to
like," he started out. And by phrasing things that way he assured himself
that I'd be unhappy with it. By then I'd grabbed a dishtowel to blot the blood
from that bizarre little love bite of his. Whatever was up with that I figured
I'd never know.

"You're giving me the creeps, Jude. Just get on with
it."

Jude sat on the coffee table, facing me, then stood up
again, pacing some more, his dangly bits flapping around like a semaphore
warning.

"Christ, Jude, the floor's going to catch fire if you
don't stop making so much friction on it. Okay, okay, I get the hint. You
regret having slept with me. I can deal with it. To tell you the truth I only
did it because I was horny anyhow—"

"You only slept with me because you were horny?"

I gave him a "no duh" look, rolling my eyes.

"But—"

He began to knead his face with his hands.

"When I said I had to leave you it wasn't because I
didn't love you, Marina," he said. "It was because something
happened. Something horrible happened."

I just stared at him, not sure whether I should call
9-1-1 or push him out the door.

"I met a woman. And I'll admit, she was beautiful.
Blonde, stacked. She had an amazing ass."

"Cut to the chase. I don't need to hear about your
infidelities at this point. We're divorced, now, in case you hadn't
noticed."

Talk about tacky, fresh after hooking up with your ex,
chatting about a booty call with another woman.

"No, but see, I didn't want to be unfaithful. Sure, I
didn't mind looking at her. I mean she was a knockout. I'll admit she got my
blood stirring. God, that wasn't well-phrased. Let's take that back. So maybe
she inspired some thoughts in me. But I loved — love — you,
Marina."

"Don't talk about love with me, Jude. I'm the one who
loved you and look what you did to that."

"But that's what I'm getting at. I had to
leave you. And it's because of this woman. I met her through work. She came in
one day, without an appointment, said she wanted to meet with me. I told her to
talk to DeeDee about setting up a time. She did, but in the meantime she
followed me after work one day—she seemed so insistent about this. Claimed she
needed an accountant for a business that had been in the family for many
generations. Wanted to meet over drinks to discuss what she needed from me. I
was going to tell her to just stick with her appointment but she begged me."

"Since when did you succumb to a woman begging
you?" Jude was not your average bird dog when it came to women. I can't
remember him even watching another gal in my presence.

He put his finger to his lips; I shut up and let him
continue. "Finally I relented and told her we could meet for a drink. I
met her at Q Bar, the one we went to for your birthday last year."

"You took her to my birthday
bar?"

"I didn't take her — I was
just meeting her there. I was a few minutes late and she was drumming her fingers
on the bar, looking most impatient. Once we sat down to talk, I realized there
was something about her, something eerily mesmerizing. I couldn't keep my eyes
off her, like I had no control over myself. Sure I stared at her. Who can look
at a Da Vinci without an appreciative eye?"

"Are you trying to piss me off?"

"I'm just saying. But I soon realized the more I tried
to look away from her, the more she fixed her gaze on mine, pinning her focus
on me so precisely it was like a laser beam being used to hone in on its
target. I couldn't do a thing about it. Before I knew what was happening, we
were in an alley behind Chili's and she had her hand on my—"

"I told you I don't want to hear about your dalliances,
Jude."

"But it's relevant information," he said.
"Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, she had her hand on my crotch and even though
I knew in my heart it was wrong, I couldn't help myself, babe."

"Don't babe me."

"Honestly I couldn’t help it. And then I was pushing up
her skirt and she was tugging down my pants and somehow deep down in my gut I
felt certain I was going to be having the best sex of my life when she opened
her mouth wide, wide like a snake about to eat something ten times its size,
and then she clamped down on my neck and I felt this pain, like someone had—"

"I didn't know what had happened at first," Jude
continued. "I looked over at this woman and she looked as if someone had
just infused her with sunshine, she practically glowed all of a sudden. And
then I—"

"Reached down and felt your neck—"

"And it was warm and wet—"

"And when you took your hand away—"

"There. Was—"

"Blood."

I was shaking, the sort of 7.0-on-the-Richter scale tremors
that happen when you're coming out of anesthesia following surgery. I wanted a
warm hospital blanket and a soothing nurse at that very moment to calm me, to
tell me I was all right. For that matter I'd have been much happier to realize
I'd emerged from mere surgery with a simple organ removed, rather than my
entire future excised without having even signed a consent form.

"Before I could find anything more about this woman,
she was gone. The only thing I had left with the slightest hint about her was a
web address she'd given me:

v_sanguine.net

"I thought it was her business website, so I looked it
up, but there was nothing there. Nothing. Then when I typed in the word
sanguine, I hit the jackpot. Well, jackpot in a bad way. I realized then what
had happened."

By that time I'd grabbed the wedding afghan that my Aunt
Bertie had crocheted for me, her twelfth niece, and wrapped myself ,
mummy-like, with it. I didn't particularly like the thing, but always felt so
badly that poor Aunt Bertie died a spinster and I knew someone had to
appreciate her handiwork, even if it did catch fingers and toes if you tried to
sleep with it. And was the color of — oh, God — dried
blood.

"I still hadn't fully embraced what had happened. I
mean, yeah, I've watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But that was
just television. I knew there was nothing like this in real life. Surely this
was just some insane woman who had a really creepy fetish."

I was feeling especially lightheaded, the way you feel after
you've given blood. Only no one was nearby to hand me a cookie and a glass of
orange juice. Oh, wait, I had given blood. Only not of my own volition. I still
hadn't the energy to say much of anything, so I sat back and listened, staring
as if in a trance.

"I knew I'd done everything wrong. Everything. I mean,
I had sex with this stranger. Even though I was married to you. And that was
bad enough. But then, but then…" he trailed off and just sort of stood
there, still naked, his shrunken willy looking about as forlorn as I think he
was. "After I came home, I tried to research more about this. But
everything I read kept coming back to the same thing. And as the days
progressed, I began to feel weaker, I knew what I needed, but I couldn't bring
myself to do it. I mean what was I going to do, go down to the local blood bank
and ask to make a withdrawal?"

At that my stomach began to lurch, like a very flat tire
trying to progress down the road. Flop, flop, flop. I could feel the wine and
the Moo Goo Gai Pan I'd eaten an hour earlier (along with about four Chips
Ahoys and a box of Jujubes) all vying against one another to be the first back
up the chute.

I raced to the nearest receptacle, my kitchen recycling bin,
and heaved repeatedly. For the record, the Jujubes won.

"You mean to tell me you've fucking turned me
into a vampire?" For a whisper of a moment, the amount of time it
takes a hummingbird to flap its wings, I stood frozen in place. But then I
surged forward, pounding my fists against Jude in rapid-fire motion, as fast as
Phil Collins with a set of drumsticks.

"YOU FUCKING TURNED ME INTO A VAMPIRE??? You
bastard!" I screamed, pounding with what felt like a bizarrely superhuman
strength, as if I'd suddenly been imbued with invincibility, but realizing that
it wasn't even eliciting a flinch from the man. Beast. Whatever he was. Or I
now am. "Everything!," I shrieked. "Everything! I had everything
ahead of me!"

"I kept meaning to make an appointment with a plastic
surgeon to discuss fixing these puppies! Couldn't you have at least waited till
I'd gotten around to doing that? Now I'm stuck with sagging tits for all of
eternity?"

"I'm sorry, Marina, I tried to resist," he said,
letting out a sigh that seemed to reached to the bottom of the earth. "But
when I saw you looking all sexy like that, what could I do? You know that all
men think with their dicks. Why would I be an exception? Besides, I love your
breasts just the way they are." He reached over in an attempt to tweak one
but I swatted him away immediately.

"Sexy like what? I was sitting here minding my own
business in my Hello Kitty! pajamas! You've got a hell of a
lot of explaining to do."

Jude grabbed a throw pillow and plunked down on my burgundy
leather Queen Anne (which would surely stick to his sweaty flesh. Unless
vampire flesh has a Teflon quality to it I don't know about). He at least had
the decency to cover himself up with the pillow.

"So the more I read about my dilemma—"

"Dilemma? Are you mad? Dilemma is trying to
figure out how you're going to get to work on time when you're stuck in rush
hour traffic—"

"Okay, fine, the more I read about my predicament,
the more I realized it came with all sorts of, well, let's say contraindications to
our staying together."

"Contraindications? Now we're cribbing from the
pharmacy warning labels?"

"Would you let me continue? This is hard enough, in
case you hadn't noticed."

"You just sucked blood from my neck,
Jude. Like some greedy two hundred pound mosquito. You've apparently just made
me immortal, for fuck's sake — nothing I ever wanted, by
the way. So don't look for much sympathy from this corner of the peanut
gallery."

He gave a subtle nod in my direction, meager acknowledgment
for his transgressions if you ask me. "Anyhow. The longer I went without
sustenance, the more I craved it. At first I was able to stave off the
yearnings. I was eating steaks — rare — every day at lunch.
But I soon discovered that steak alone wasn't going to do the job. I had to go
on the prowl."

"The prowl? Like some middle-aged Mr.
Goodbar?"

Jude rolled his eyes at me. "I was trying to
protect you, Marina."

"Clearly that worked." I glared at him. "So
this is when the fancy underpants came into play?"

"They're not underpants."

"Whatever. So this is when you started dressing to,
what, kill?"

Jude flinched at that. "I wasn't trying to kill anyone.
But I didn't know what to do. And really, I didn't exactly kill them. I just
changed their natural state."

"I'll say. Like going from a state of ecstasy to the
state penitentiary. Only this prison's for all eternity." Was it for
eternity? I was trying to probe the recesses of my memory for some notion about
vampire lore. I dressed as Dracula for Halloween once or twice, but I didn't
bone up on Drac's habits for the occasion.

"So did you have extended hook-ups with
women? Or did you just nab 'em in the elevator and give 'em the old
one-two?" I made a hook and an uppercut with my arms, then looked over and
saw the truth carved like wrinkles into his face. "You slept with
them and you killed them?"

"For me!!!" For about one more
millisecond I was rendered speechless but then the tidal wave of fury beckons
forth from my mouth -— that very mouth that is now going to have to find a
taste for blood. With me, a vegetarian. Jesus. I've always been pretty good at
math, but this sort of calculation doesn't add up no matter how many ways I try
to work the equation.

"First you have sex with a strange, beautiful woman in
a dark alley. Then you start cruising for new meat like some sort of, of,
of cannibal, doing god knows what to get your fix, and now you've
destroyed me, destroyed my life." I pace the room back and forth like some
nervous father-to-be awaiting a cigar and an It's a Boy! declaration.
"Jesus! My mother warned me about men! But did I listen? No. I told her
you weren't like other men. But she told me one day I'd know better. This is
one time I wish my mother wasn't right.

"It's all making sense now," I said, trying to
feign calm while teetering on the edge of manic rage, a veritable cattle
stampede of anger. "First the damned underwear. Then the steaks! You gave
up red meat for me years ago. But then you started sneaking behind my back
eating steak again. I thought I smelled blood in your sweat at
the gym, dammit. Steaks. Now my life is going to be about steaks
and stakes. Jesus, fuck. And you knew about my blood aversion. It's why I
didn't go to med school. I can barely attend the annual Red Cross gala. And I
practically faint at the sight of blood! Goddammit Jude, how could you?
You know I'm not a night owl! And now I have to avoid
daylight?? How the hell am I going to get a suntan? You tell me that. Christ, I
should've known ex-sex would lead to no good. This is bad. On a bad scale with
zero being a paper cut and a hundred being my dog got hit by a train, this is
a bazillion on that bad scale. A bazillion, Jude, do you hear
me? You've just sentenced me to an even worse fate than you because a) you
betrayed your wife when you fucked some strange woman behind the Chili's — and
god, we don't even eat at Chilis! — so you deserve this, and b)
this is going to really put a kink in my life. How the hell do you expect a
vegetarian hemophobe to survive as a vampire? You tell me that? Am
I supposed to mug a blood courier? Cause I'll never do what you just did to get
by."

Jude grabbed another nearby blanket and wrapped it around
his waist. "First off, I don't know where you get the idea that somehow
you'll be afraid of gay people—"

I poked him in his forehead with my forefinger, wishing I
had the power to make an actual indentation, a keepsake for him to remember
what an ass he is. "I said hemophobe, not homophobe."

"It was a joke, Marina. Remember, we always love to
joke together?"

"Joke’s on you, too, cause this is no laughing matter.
Why'd you go and kill me, Jude? Did you hate me that much?"

"I didn't kill you — I made
you immortal!"

"Whoo-hoo! I get to be immortal. With these!" I
screamed, pointing again at my ta-ta's.

"But don’t you get it? It's not about that stuff. It's
bigger than all of that. It's about Us, with a big U. Us reuniting.
Back together again. Maybe on some subconscious level I did this on purpose,
because I wanted — I needed — to share my
forever with you. Just think, now we can be together for all
eternity."

"Me? Together with you?" I
shrieked yet again. It seems that shrieking might well be a hallmark of
vampirism. "For all eternity? Are you out of your fucking
mind? You just killed me, and now you want me to be yours? Put
it in a goddamned valentine."

I got up, supercharged with my newfound and roiling anger
heaving like a stomach with a bad case of food poisoning. I stormed across the
living room and kitchen, collecting bits of my ex-husband's clothing, confetti
that started out celebratory but now only served as a stale reminder of what
wasn't. I opened the fireplace screen, pulled the flue handle down, and piled
his pants, shirt and shoes atop the andirons. I pulled the matchbox off the
mantle, upon which was the last remaining picture of me and Jude together,
which I grabbed and threw in with the rest, and lit the pile on fire. Jude came
rushing over.

"Marina! You can't do that!"

"Oh I think you broke the bank on can't do
that’s. I most certainly can, and watch me." I blocked his body as I
let the conflagration erupt, the soles of his shoes smoldering longer than the
flash-fire cotton of his shirt.

"My clothes. I need my clothes—"

"My life. I needed my life, and you snatched that right
out from under me."

"Honey, why don't you just sleep on this, maybe you'll
see things clearer in the morning."

"This isn't like breaking up with my first boyfriend.
Nothing will become clear in this picture. Now. GET OUT." I wiped my hands
against each other, as if erasing him from my existence. I grabbed a fireplace
poker and skewered him in the butt, pushing him toward the front door.

"But Marina, honey, I love you."

"Out!" I began hitting him, hoping he'd
finally take the hint. As we made it to the doorway, enacting the very reverse
of that newlywed tradition of the groom carrying the bride across the
threshold, a flash of white caught my eye, and I reached down to spear what I
saw.